Abstract:
Background:-.Although, infant and young child feeding practices play an important role in
reducing early childhood morbidity and mortality, very large proportions of women do not
practice optimal breastfeeding and complementary feeding for their children in Ethiopia. To date,
there is not address the supply and demand side factors that influence infant and young child
feeding practices. Additionally, no study is level the degree of influence on infant and young
child feeding practices in the study area.
Objective: To assess supply and demand side factors that influence infant and young child
feeding.
Methods: A community based cross-sectional study design with qualitative was conducted on
randomly 434mothers who had children under age of 24 months from March 13 to April 13,
2017.Pre-tested structured questionnaire was used to interview the sampled mothers. Qualitative
data was collected through in-depth interviews and focus group discussion. Qualitative data were
analyzed through a thematic analysis approach. Quantitative data were coded and entered into
Epi-data version 3.1. Then, it was exported to SPSS version 21.0 for analysis. Simple and
multiple logistic regression analysis were applied to identify the associated factors of infant and
young child feeding.
Results: The overall, prevalence of inappropriate infant and young child feeding practice was
284 (67.9%). Being government employee of husband[AOR = 4.08 (1.65, 10.04)], lower income
status [AOR = 3.11(1.36, 7.07)], not attending ANC (AOR = 2.03 (1.22, 3.36)], child age 0 - 5
months [AOR = 2.42(1.02, 5.72)], negative attitude of mothers towards IYCF [AOR = 2.35
(1.44, 3.84)] and number of children 3-4 [AOR = 1.99 (1.08, 3.64)] were independent predictors
of inappropriate infant and young child feeding status.
Conclusion: There is high prevalence of inappropriate infant and young child feeding practice in
the study area. Interventional initiatives should focus on improving socio-economic status, and
access to information, education and communication (IEC); also increasing ANC coverage for
further improvement of IYCF is recommended.
